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The Basics of Effort Certification

The Basics of Effort Certification. FS 127. Jorge Rafael Manzano Time and Effort Coordinator Office of Sponsored Programs Tuesday, March 03, 2009. Purpose.

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The Basics of Effort Certification

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  1. The Basics of Effort Certification FS 127 Jorge Rafael ManzanoTime and Effort CoordinatorOffice of Sponsored Programs Tuesday, March 03, 2009

  2. Purpose The purpose of this course is to familiarize faculty and their administrative support staff with the University’s new effort reporting system, in order to comply with Federal regulations and UTSA policies and procedures that govern effort on sponsored projects. It includes a hands-on training session following this presentation.

  3. Goals • Explain the requirements for effort reporting and certification • Provide guidance on effort reporting and certification using UTSA’s effort reporting tool, ECRT • Walk through effort reporting training scenarios (hands-on lab section)

  4. Audience Completion of this course is recommended for: • Principal Investigators with active sponsored projects (manage “26” accounts) • Department administrative and support staff who provide support to PIs on their 26 accounts (e.g., make grant appointments) • Administrators and other members of the campus research community may also find it useful.

  5. Effort Reporting at UTSA

  6. ECRT Activities Schedule

  7. Why do we report effort? OMB Circular A-21, Section J.10 (Compensation for Personal Services) • Effort reporting requirements • After-the-fact confirmation of personnel costs charged to sponsored agreements • The system must be incorporated into the official records of the institution • Certification which encompasses all employee activities on an integrated basis (i.e. 100% effort) • Certification by an individual with suitable means of verification that the work was performed • Independent internal evaluations to ensure the system’s effectiveness and compliance

  8. How often do we report effort? OMB Circular A-21, Section J.10 (Compensation for Personal Services) • Timing requirements • Annually (plan-confirmation system) • Each academic term (after-the-fact activity records - PIs and professional staff), or • Monthly (after-the-fact activity records - all other employees)

  9. How do we report effort? OMB Circular A-21, Section J.10 (Compensation for Personal Services) • Reliability and Reasonableness • “…it is recognized that research, service and administration are inextricably intermingled. A precise assessment of factors that contribute to costs is not always feasible, nor is it expected. Reliance, therefore, is placed on estimates in which a degree of tolerance is appropriate.”

  10. Who certifies effort? It is the responsibility of every Principal Investigator/Project Director to certify their own effort and the effort of all persons working on their sponsored programs, as they have the best firsthand knowledge of their sponsored programs.

  11. Really. Who said so? • “Specifically, PIs have primary responsibility for all aspects of the sponsored projects including approval of all charges and ensuring that the research is conducted in accordance with the award terms and conditions.” (NSF Audit of Payroll Distribution System, Cal Tech, OIG 07-01-013)

  12. Are there exceptions? • There are some exceptions made for practical reasons (e.g. perhaps the researcher is out of the country or is on temporary leave of absence). • Federal requirements are that anyone certifying effort for another individual must credibly have first hand knowledge of the individual’s actual effort.

  13. We certify effort and salaries? • No, effort certification is not a verification of the accuracy of the payroll system. • Should changes be made to the amount of committed effort associated with an activity during the effort certification process, a corresponding change to the payroll system will also need to be made.

  14. How is effort related to salaries? • The salaries paid by UTSA to its employees working on Federal grants are generally charged or allocated to those grants on the basis of effort expended • For example, if 33.3% of an employee’s total effort is expended on a Federal grant, then up to 33.3% of the employee’s salary is chargeable to that grant • A certified effort report confirms that charges are reasonable in relation to the work performed

  15. ECRT Navigation – Login Screens To enter the ECRT system, please go to the T/E section of the OSP website.

  16. ECRT Navigation – Login Screens Since the ECRT system is Shibboleth-enabled, this login page will be displayed. Make sure to select our university.

  17. ECRT Navigation – Login Screens Enter your network login (abc123) and password to log in.

  18. ECRT Navigation – Login Screens Check for important information here Check this area for useful links to reference guides, videos and external links Click here to enter ECRT

  19. Certification – Certifier Actions Certifiers have a limited number of links on the Welcome screen when logged into ECRT. In general, they can certify their effort and the effort of research assistants that work for them. They can also see reports related to their projects. Start the effort certification process by clicking on the link to Certify My Effort.

  20. Certify My Effort • The Certification Payroll report link will show the dollars paid the researcher and how the percentages on this screen were calculated. The certifier is brought to the Effort Certification screen. The screen must be reviewed by the certifier and then approved to move to the “certification statement”. The Sponsored activity appears in the top part of the card and the Non Sponsored activity appears in the bottom part of the card. There are subtotals for each award as well as the Sponsored and Non Sponsored areas. • The top of the effort card shows basic information for the faculty member (name, department, office location, etc.) • Click here if you want to download a PDF version of your effort card. • Check the view period to make sure you are looking at the right six-month certification period. • Sponsored information will appear at the top of the effort card. • Non-sponsored information will appear at the bottom of the effort card.

  21. Certify My Effort This is the bottom of the certification screen. The total may add to more than 100% because of rounding. This will have no adverse effect on the certification process or statement. The text box at the bottom allows certifiers to enter comments and notes.

  22. Certify My Effort The effort card will compute effort for the six-month certification period based on the following formula: PAYROLL (PAID EFFORT) + COST SHARED EFFORT = COMPUTED EFFORT During the six month reporting period and/or the pre-review period prior to certification, faculty will be encouraged to monitor their effort and notify OSP of any adjustments if necessary. The Cost Share section columns shows your CONTRIBUTED EFFORT  if your effort on sponsored activities that was indirectly charged or cost-shared, the percentages shown in the sponsored section would be positive, and the corresponding percentages in the non-sponsored section would be negative. The Payroll section columns shows your PAID EFFORT  your effort on these activities that was directly charged. For sponsored activities, your effort is charged to the grant accounts. For non-sponsored activities, your department or institutional accounts are charged. NOTE: The revised columns allow for on-the-fly updates should the information in the Payroll and Cost Share columns need adjusting. OSP will follow up on any revisions (that may need cost transfers, for instance) before final certification processing.

  23. Certify Effort • To complete an effort certification, a PI will enter percentages of effort for each of his/her listed activities, both sponsored and non-sponsored. • A PI enters the percentage of effort in the CERTIFIED EFFORT column, based on the information at his/her disposal as s/he has the best first-hand knowledge and suitable means to verify his/her effort: • Computed Effort • Revisions • Additional info • When all effort has been accounted for, the researcher clicks the “Certify” button below the totals. NOTE: The certifier will see an error message if the total certified effort is either less than or greater than 100%.

  24. Certify Effort The PI is then presented with a certification message reminding them what they certifying to. After a final review of the information on the page and the certification statement at the top, the certifier will click the “I Agree” button under the message. After this, the user is returned to the Home Page. The effort card is sent on to the EC for processing, along with any entered notes.

  25. Certify My Support Staff – Single View All PIs also have the responsibility of certifying the effort of any non-certifier’s working on their awards. To begin this process, the PI should select “Certify My Support Staff – Single View.”

  26. Certify My Support Staff – Single View The link takes you to a list of all researchers associated to your awards. Clicking on a name displays the yellow box. This allows you to view either the current effort card, or the researcher’s historical cards. Selecting view current is necessary to certify the researcher.

  27. Certify My Support Staff The effort card displayed for the PI is formatted to look exactly like the effort card they saw under “Certify My Effort”. The procedure here is the same, they must enter certified percentages, and click the check boxes before pressing the submit button.

  28. Certify My Support Staff To finish the certification, the PI must press the “I Agree” button. Once that is completed, the effort card is passed to the department EC for processing.

  29. Certify My Support Staff – Group View All PI’s also have the responsibility of certifying the effort of any non-certifier’s working on their awards. In this process, the PI should select “Certify My Support Staff – Group View,” which will display one continuous effort card for all support staff associated with their sponsored projects.

  30. View the Support Staff of a PI It can be helpful as an Effort Coordinator or Central Administrator to see the individuals who are associated with a particular PI. To do this, select “View the Support Staff of a PI.”

  31. View the Support Staff of a PI The View Support Staff of a PI screen needs you to select a specific PI to view. Note that even PI’s have access to this screen. However, based on their security rights, they can only view themselves.

  32. View the Support Staff of a PI The result of a selection is to show the information about the PI/Designee, as well as the name, employee ID, department and certification status for the prior four certification periods of each of that PIs associated certifiers.

  33. Processing Certifications Once a member of support staff has certified his effort, it is the responsibility of the Effort Coordinator to review what has been submitted. The review is necessary to deal with any significant discrepancies between the computed payroll distribution and the certified effort. In ECRT, the review process is done by selecting the Manage Effort Tasks link on the home page.

  34. Processing Certifications If the support staff member certifies to a percentage that is different than the computed percentages, ECRT calculates the dollars related to the changes and shows them to the right of the changed lines. In this example, $2941.76 has been cost transferred between the two sponsored projects the staff member worked on. Typically, the staff member would include notes in the bottom section if the effort lines were changed. It is the administrator’s responsibility to review the appropriateness of the cost transfers and effort that has been certified. After review, the administrator clicks the “Process” button at bottom of the page. If necessary, the EC can add notes in the box at the bottom of the screen for future reference. After processing, the item is removed from the task list and the status is set to “completed.”

  35. Processing Certifications If after reviewing the certification the Administrator believes there is an error, she should indicate the reason why there is a problem in the notes box and click the “Do Not Process” button at the bottom of the screen. This action causes an email to automatically be sent from the administrator to the researcher telling her that the certification needs further review and to contact the administrator. It also changes the status of the certification from “Certified” back to “In Progress”. The researcher would then reopen the certification, review the administrator’s notes, and take appropriate action as needed and resubmit for processing.

  36. Effort Recertification If a correction needs to be made to a certified and processed card, select effort recertification, and enter the name of the researcher to be corrected.

  37. Effort Recertification The Administrator should select the period desired and click the button at the bottom right to “Open for Recertification”. This will cause an email to be sent to the researcher saying she needs to recertify her time for that period. Note: An Effort Coordinator is allowed to reopen a certification card only if that card is still within its certification period. If the certification is from a closed period, only the Central Administrator has the security privilege to perform this action.

  38. Current ECRT Build

  39. Planned ECRT Build

  40. For more information… • Check out our new website: http://vpr.utsa.edu/osp/teNew documentation and training materials will be added in the coming weeks • Watch for training sessions offered through UTSA/HR • Schedule an effort workshop for your department

  41. Let’s try ECRT out, shall we?

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